Human
by Nayru Elric
Summary: "Here we are again, with your lonely eyes and your rusty skin. You've been gone for a long time. I buried you so far away, where nothing grows and no one goes. But still... while I sleep, I dream of all we had." Post-apocalyptic robot AU. Three-shot.
1. Initializing

**Summary: **_"Here we are again, with your lonely eyes and your rusty skin. You've been gone for a long time. I buried you so far away, where nothing grows and no one goes. But still… while I sleep, I dream of all we had."_

* * *

**Human**

* * *

Overgrown with vines and shrubbery, the Garden had become a cold and desolate place. Fractured pillars embedded themselves crookedly in the ground; colorized shards of plastic and glass hung from string on mobiles; and all was obscured in the mist that consumed his vision and thought. Crows encircled from above. Their dark, aerial bodies reflected in amber lenses, hundreds of feet down below. They chased a songbird over the tops of the trees, cawing ravenously as they snapped at the lone bird. Below in the Garden, digits twitched, and a hunk of metal lurched to life.

Stumbling away from the cracked stone wall, the robot emerged like larvae from egg. His feet clanged against the ground with each unstable step, tripping over the cracks in the cobblestone path infested with grass and insects. Alternating between muffled clangs and metal chipping against stone, the metal boy hobbled until he regained his balance. In a beam of sunlight amidst the broken pillars of the Garden, his body illuminated: green metal calves were sculpted into boots, his middle armored with the same dull green, rusty orange stripes running down the abdomen and across the bottom of his chest. His thighs, hands, and face were sprayed a dark tan color, for he was covered in a durable but soft metallic plasticine.

His right arm was missing. Only a thick metal rod hung from his shoulder among the open wires. Metal fingers bare of plasticine remained stationary, attached to the end of the rod, as the mechanism hissed at his shoulder. Unable to be moved as nimbly as the other, and the robot brought his other hand toward his head, where plasticine met the dark beige metal panels that assembled a thorny crown of hair. Large bolts held each of his joints together at the edges of the plasticine, where his kneecaps, elbows, and shoulders joined. Multicolored wires, mostly of red and blue, were apparent in the gaps in between.

His facial features were flinty, unable to stretch and contract the same as a human child's – but a sense of juvenile curiosity laid in the quirk of his slender brow. Powerful as his optimized zoom lenses were, they were made in the likeness of human eyes. A large, amber diaphragm surrounded the pupil-like aperture in the center. Tan-colored shutters acted as eyelids. As the boy bounded through the forest, a spring in his step, the model number on his left upper arm flashed copper in the light filtering through the trees: **7.7**.

What his name had ever been aside from that, he didn't know.

Hopping over train tracks in the forest that were hardly recognizable underneath the increased foliage, the robot boy left the Garden. He passed a fallen airplane. Veiled in vines, only the shape of the nose and wings on either side gave away what it used to be. On the forest's edge, the metal boy halted, mulling over the remnants of what was once human society.

Peppering the landscape were city and building complexes as far as the eye could see.

Venturing into the city in search for spare parts for his arm, the robot didn't come across a single soul. Lost in an accident some time ago, he hadn't come across any material that could match the malleable, high-tech plasticine panels that covered the rest of his body. Digging through boxes in an old warehouse, dusty from the wooden shavings swarming in the dull light, his smooth, metallic fingertips picked out a soft creature. Upon further investigation, he found out it wasn't alive. The robot studied it for a moment, creating a mental sketch of it in his mind – it was shaped like the large, round furry creatures he saw in picture books with its beady eyes and furry complexion. He set the teddy bear aside.

Later that day, traversing an underground train station, teddy bear in hand, the robot was halted by a turnstile. Too lost in the processes whirring inside him, he ran into it multiple times, not registering what barred him from entrance, until, neck gears turning, he lifted his eyes.

Presently, he leapt over the turnstile, and landed onto the train tracks. Soft from a blanket of moss, he looked both ways. He started down the track in the direction opposite of the underground tunnel, motivated to travel farther from the city today.

Yet, after hours of walking, he was still in another part of the city – what was once a market street, it looked like. Passing by many shops littered in shards of steel and glass, and collapsed neon signs, long burnt out and corroding, the robot stopped. He'd been through here many times before, combed the boxes holding human supplies: the large grey plastic boxes with one glass side, the boxes with chemicals spilling from them, labeled in strange runes. None of it was useful, or new.

At the end of another day, the robot trudged back toward the forest from a suspension bridge. The orange sunset made tall shadows stretch across the bridge, its vine-covered cables extending into the sky. They ensconced much of his view of the golden horizon, so the boy stopped, his human-like features gazing pedantically at the sun. Just how long… just how long would he dwell here, not knowing where he came from, or to whom he belonged?

The robot's programming wasn't complex enough for him to wonder about the state of the world or the nature of his creator – but the robot hoped, someday, if he kept searching, he'd find something. Some reason for his existence, and the human loneliness that pervaded his slowly fizzling circuits…

Rotating his jagged-haired metal head toward the ground, he felt sluggish. The sun was setting, and he was out of battery.

Returning to the Garden with dragging steps, it was exactly as he'd left it that morning: crumbling, but serene. The only place he could call home. Dark shadows hung beneath the dense canopy of trees. The sounds of whooping animals echoed in the distance. There was no light save for the place in the wall he'd burst from that morning. A gaping hole with a few drops of blue liquid glowed inside. Opening a panel in his chest, the robot boy placed the teddy bear he had found in the warehouse on the pile of stuff beside the docking station. Things like thimbles, keychains, old-fashioned furniture cushions, a fishing line, and framed oil paintings were gathered there. Doddering back around the wall, the robot paused at the cocoon-like docking station in the alcove, the radioactive blue liquid that irradiated there. He called up in his memory the time he had first emerged from it.

All alone and without programming, his vision had faded from black into lightness, shapes, and colors. The gears in his head whirred between his sound sensors, and he wiggled his fingers, noticing the instinctual response to do so. Whether his arm had been missing, even back then, he could not remember. When he had tried to touch his shoulder, he realized he was trapped in the wall, held back by some force in the center of his back. Yanking on it with all his effort, he'd felt something ripping, disconnecting. Finally falling onto his soft hands and metal knees, aware of something staining him, he'd turned to see the tube leaking blue liquid from the alcove he'd found himself in. The same liquid stained his back. The robot didn't have the olfactory senses to be able to smell it, but somehow, he knew it to be a vile odor, and his only life force.

The robot boy didn't reconnect to it in the coming days in fear of being trapped again, for who-knows-how-long. The longer he waited, the slower he became, hardly able to function. Eventually relenting, he crawled back to it all the way from across the city, where he'd been searching for other sentient forms. When he had placed his back into the dock, the moment the tube snapped into place, he immediately felt a surge of energy surge through him.

He'd been lucky enough not to collapse permanently in his many years here alone. Though, he'd ventured far and wide away from the city borders in search of others – as far as he could, anyway. All he ever found was more birds, and empty countryside.

The replay of the memory finished, and the robot boy gingerly backed into the alcove. Feeling the suction of the tube connect in the center of his back, his metal body relaxed. He felt himself becoming filled with energy again, and the robot powered off.

* * *

**= И****нициализация =**

* * *

The next morning, his plasticine shutter eyelids slid open to reveal heaviness in the air.

He couldn't feel heaviness as a weight, possessing no sensors to register pressure himself – it was a weight he couldn't explain… Something _different_.

Separating himself from the charging station on the wall, the boy staggered forward, and found the air all around him was misty, thicker than the day before. It was still rather dark. Not a bird, insect, nor forest creature broke the silence. The plants, too, were silent. Not one leaf swayed in the wind.

When he arrived in the city, not even the airy sound of zephyrs wafted between the buildings or stirred dust on the streets. Wandering listlessly, he once again found himself at the turnstile in the train station from the day before. This time, he looked the direction opposite from that which he'd taken the day before: the tunnel. Now masked by certain dark haze, the circular tunnel entrance loomed before him, vacant and devouring. He proceeded with caution, not having recalled going this direction before in all his years here, now that he checked his path history. His thorough mapping process as he ventured through the city led him to believe he'd seen every nook and cranny of it by now. Yet here, in the center of the city, however minute, was a place that his map was empty.

Robots cannot feel fear or pride – but staring inside, the robot boy felt a lurch in his throat. The central connection between his power cell and motherboard stuttered. He hesitated to continue, his metal feet lightly echoing on the mossy train tracks at the tunnel's entrance, where the vegetation abruptly ended. Inside was pitch-black, and though the air outside was stale, no iota of wind or sound could be heard or felt from within.

The robot walked for hours. Only the sound of his boots hitting the wooden planks between the tracks accompanied him. Creatures shifted in the dark, putting him on edge. He didn't know how far he could go, or how far he had already gone. All he knew was that he needed to get to the end, even if he had to drag himself all the way back to his charging station when his power was depleted in the end.

And then it stopped. There was no more train track beneath him. His feet hit solid ground, concrete, by the sound of it. He ambled forward in complete and utter darkness. Until he heard himself surrounded by the faint whirs and clicks of hardware. He could see small red and white lights flashing patterned in the walls, a great computer that processed information. Tracing a hand alongside it, he felt the familiar hum of a mechanical energy. This working computer wasn't as advanced as he was, what with his artificial intelligence and spatial mobility, but it was capable of amazing things. He could tell just by peering into it with the electromagnetic measuring property of his functional hand.

Retracting his hand, the robot looked around. He had no idea where below the city he was, or what this other powerful computer was doing here, until he spotted a giant metal pod. Having been in a corridor leading to this main room, the pod was the size of what he'd assumed the size of an average human once was, larger than himself. It loomed unassumingly in the dark flashing lights on all sides.

Right hand swinging helplessly at his side, the robot approached the pod. There was a window on the upper half of it, though all he could see inside was steam. Pressing his plasticine hand against the glass, he squinted, scanning the inside for anything with his eyes. He gasped when he sensed something inside. The steam cleared, and his circuit board clicked continuously with an input and output of information.

_Th… there…!_

He could hardly believe his visual processing system, never confronted with another sentient being in all his years. Inside was the most beautiful robot he had ever seen: Loose-hanging, metallic silver hair hung over the other robot's snowy white skin, his face peaceful, and hauntingly attractive. The robot boy could tell he wasn't organic only by the faint seams around his jawline, inner arms, and shoulders, and felt himself magnetized toward the robot in the pod, who looked even more advanced than himself.

Would this boy… give him a clue as to his purpose, or his creator?

7.7 clenched his left fist against the glass in front of the pale robot boy's face as he tried to figure out how to break the pod open. Taking a moment to search its sides, when he looked back, the pale robot boy's eyes had shot open. 7.7 would have been relieved, if not for the danger he sensed there.

Before he could jump back, the glass on the pod was broken, and 7.7 found himself knocked back, held against the floor. Disoriented, 7.7 felt the other boy secure a grip on his missing arm and broken shoulder, and the sharp fingertips of the robot's other hand were directed at the central coil in his throat. A slash that would disable him instantly.

"Don't move," the other boy said, his voice a chilling threat. When 7.7 looked closer, to his astonishment, the other robot's eyes were the same radioactive blue as the piercing liquid in the Garden. His eyes were ice cold.

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**I have had this story planned since freshman year of college, but only now, nearly a junior, am I finally writing it. ****This fic is inspired by many sci-fi stories and aesthetics, to the point that even I cannot recall all of them. It is also based on an album I discovered when I was first moving to college, **_**Cataclasm **_**(2016) by Crywolf, which helped me through many sleepless nights. I hope you enjoy this humble story.**

**Please leave your thoughts below! I will highly appreciate **_**any**_** feedback, criticisms, praise, or anything in between. Cheers!**


	2. Company

**= Компания =**

* * *

Even with the threat of those radioactive-blue irises piercing his metal-lined skull, 7.7 found himself delighted to have another robot in working order near him. His circuits buzzed at a speed which they never had before. His amber lenses contracted in and out of focus as he endeavored to pick apart this new specimen in front of him, the metal fingers of his functional left arm lifting to touch his face.

It wasn't long before the other robot boy's face, a sleek and pale plasticine, strained from an internal inconsistency. He leapt from 7.7's throat, hands over his plasticine face as he cried out, "Argh!" wobbling back and forth on his legs.

7.7 sat up.

"Where am I?" the other boy asked, hands over where his hearing sensors should be.

Having not used his voice much in the last many decades, when 7.7 opened his mouth, the speaker in his throat produced only an ungodly, staticky croak.

The other robot gave him a funny look. "Eh?"

Feeling humiliated – an emotion he didn't know existed within his design – 7.7 tried again. "Tunnel," he managed to say, grasping onto the sounds his sound mixer could produce. "We're in a tunnel."

The other robot looked around, at the clicking buttons, beeping lights, and the great whirring within the walls in the darkness around them. He seemed to be cataloguing every inch of the place. His eyes clicked and flickered as he passed over everything. As he did so, 7.7 caught a glimpse of the silver-blue shimmer on his left arm.

"Five-point-Five?"

The other robot snapped his head to 7.7 in surprised alarm, and 7.7 felt a flicker of that threat in the other's glowing blue eyes again.

"Is that your number?"

"I guess… I seem to remember it for some reason." 5.5 twisted his arm to look at the engraving on its upper portion, etched and plated in delicately compared to 7.7's haphazardly scraped copper numbers.

Feeling a sudden bout of exhaustion at his charging core winding down from lack of power, 7.7 surmised, "It's probably getting close to sundown outside by now." 5.5 probed his face curiously, those blue eyes flickering. "I'll show you to my home," 7.7 said, and reached for 5.5's hand.

5.5 swiped his hand back with a step. "What makes you think I'd go with you?"

7.7 stared blankly at him. "Don't you need to charge?"

"No, I've been asleep charging for eighty-seven years, nine months, three days, nineteen hours, twenty-seven minutes, and fifteen seconds."

"Wow…" _Is that how long I've been here…? _"In any case, you can't stay here. You should see the outside world," 7.7 said. Something glistened on 5.5's other arm, so 7.7 asked, "What's that?!"

5.5 lifted his right arm, the one 7.7 was missing. **K****-I-L-L-U-A**, it read in Roman letters.

"Ki-llu-a?" 7.7 voiced. Hearing the warm lilt to 7.7's automated voice as he said it, against his will, 5.5 was transported elsewhere. Bubbles danced in front of his nose. There was laughter on his lips, and the copper skin of a boy his age floated in the water front of him.

"That's an interesting string," 5.5 heard 7.7 say. Coming back to the computerized tunnel, there was nothing but 7.7's voice echoing in the dark tunnel. "Do you mind if I call you that? It's better than calling you Five-point-Five."

Still caught off-guard from something in his memory being accessed against his will, KILLUA answered blithely, "Sure."

A few hours later, they trudged out from the tunnel. In the heart of the city and having finally regained his bearings, the robot KILLUA couldn't help but ask, "What about you?"

The gears in his neck spun, and 7.7 turned his head back toward him. "What about me?"

"What's your name," KILLUA clarified.

7.7 turned toward the moss-covered train track that had reappeared beneath their feet. "I don't have a name. Maybe it was lost when I lost my arm?" 7.7 held up the metal rod that hung from his left shoulder as best he could when he said it, a kind of humor to his voice. "Seven-point-Seven works for me!" Something like a smile played across his plasticine lips, and again KILLUA got a flash of that smile in carefree summer heat. This time, it faded as quickly as it came.

On their way back, KILLUA made a mental blueprint of the scenery all around them: the disastrous state of the world, and emptiness of the streets, the vines that overgrew every building and crevice. Buried in his memory system, he had knowledge of how human society should be. Bursting with commerce, full of people, giant metal birds thundering in the sky, smoke rising from chimneys – but here, the humans were nowhere to be found.

"Hey Seven-point-Seven, what happened here?" KILLUA asked.

"I'm not sure," he said without looking back. "I've been here for many decades, and the only living beings I've seen are deep within the ground, or in the sky." 7.7 looked up, hoping to see one of the feathered, flight-possessing creatures that sometimes lingered by the Garden when he was very, very still. He didn't see any and looked down again. "My guess is that the humans left planet Earth to seek shelter elsewhere, needing a more suitable habitat, given the state of the atmosphere. That's why we see the infrastructure of their past society all around us, undestroyed. But in all my years, I haven't uncovered any conclusive evidence for one theory or another. Anything could have happened."

"Yeah, and your theory doesn't make sense," KILLUA asserted. Steps silent on the debris as he trod behind 7.7, KILLUA pointed out, "Even if the buildings are mostly intact, there are signs of struggle all around us given the state of the streets. The wind couldn't have done that alone. And even if the air quality isn't suitable, nothing here looks bad enough to have caused them to leave. The life forms that I detect show no sign of toxins within their bodies aside from an overuse of fossil fuels in the air, and what has polluted waterways and biogenetically grown in food. However, none of these levels are high enough to decimate a human population of over seven-billion."

7.7 shrugged. "Is there any chance those toxins have faded overtime since the humans would have been here? I've never seen a human during my time here, living or decayed."

KILLUA continued to gather what little intel he could on the state of the surroundings as he walked behind 7.7's steps clunky steps, his own soundless and smooth. When they turned a corner into a large open area near a river, KILLUA caught sight of a run-down aquarium in the distance. Its windows were shattered, the sign and fishy graphic on the front torn and fractured. KILLUA stopped, continuing to stare, not understanding why his internal circuits were so excited and reminiscent, seeing the place.

When he realized it was a time not of this life.

Quickly, his eyes shot to 7.7's back, narrowing. The robot continued to walk ahead of him absently, sensing nothing. Perhaps he was paranoid. Attempting to calm his circuits, KILLUA walked on.

When they reach the Garden, 7.7 took it upon himself to offer the charging station to KILLUA. "I've been charging for over eight decades," he refused. "I'll keep watch while you rest."

"_Keep watch"…? _"There's nothing to be afraid of out here, KILLUA," 7.7 assured him. "I haven't seen anyone or anything bigger than a bird while I've been out here."

"Still," KILLUA insisted. He crouched down with his metal legs scrunched close to him, his elbows planted on his knees, already comfortable.

A little shocked at his litheness, 7.7 shook himself off as he hooked himself into the wall, where radioactive blue liquid sifted into his system. He powered off, leaving KILLUA to face the night alone.

Wind passed the sensors on his face, hands, and legs. His design was clearly more advanced than 7.7's, but with it, came his sense of danger at every turn. He didn't know why. Even in this secluded place in the forest, KILLUA felt as though a pair of eyes was watching him. He'd felt it from the moment he awoke in the tunnel – that mother computer immured him for almost a century, smothering him until his first instinct was to attack whomever came near –

KILLUA sat down, bringing his legs closer to his metal body, wrapping his arms around them. In the dark of the night, his blue eyes glowed dully. Crows observed from overhead…

The next morning, 7.7 lurched himself out of his charging station, on all fours and dripping from his back. Lenses slowly coming into focus, he surveyed the area around him, finding himself alone aside from the white doves that picked at insects in between the cracks of cobblestone.

"KILLUA?"

7.7 stood straight and ambled forward, scanning the area for any movement. He was beginning to think all that happened yesterday was just a dream – yes, even robots could produce seemingly random images during power-off that reflected their A.I. The sound of deft running footsteps startled him from behind, but before he could look, the other had already pounced on top of him.

"Ha! Gotcha!" KILLUA said proudly, his hands on 7.7's shoulders.

7.7 grinned, and used his working arm to flip KILLUA around. KILLUA shoved him off and went running through the woods.

This was fun!

They ran, passing the overgrown airplane and other vehicles, until they reached the view of the city, extending for miles in the distance. Their fun over, KILLUA descended the slope leading into the streets. "C'mon. We should look for clues."

7.7 thought it pointless, knowing how far and how long he'd searched every corner of this city. But who knew? Perhaps this other robot could discover something he had overlooked. He had missed the tunnel that he found KILLUA in all this time, after all.

KILLUA took to slicing walls with the little retracting blades on the tips of his fingers and those on the back of his arms. Easily, he picked apart objects and barred entrances with accuracy in his movements that 7.7 could only watch in awe. KILLUA hacked into all manner of electronics, transmitting power to them through a small wire that emerged from his neck. Connected to new devices, he got it working again. KILLUA retracted all kinds of information and was even able to read the strange runes on objects that 7.7 could not to decipher their meaning. His abilities were so great, that Gon wondered how their model numbers could be so close together, or how they could have approximately the same production date, as 7.7's internal clock measured about eighty-seven years as well, though he wasn't sure.

Following KILLUA around was _definitely_ more interesting than venturing around aimlessly alone.

Despite KILLUA's technological capabilities, they turned up nothing of use. Frustrated, KILLUA kicked an aluminum can on the side of the road, which sailed over forty feet. A whole bushel of them had been released from a vending machine on the sidewalk. He clenched his sharp fingers at his sides into fists, paying 7.7 little mind, who followed him. "UHG!"

"KILLUA? Where are you going?" 7.7 asked, hobbling to keep up with him.

"Nowhere!" KILLUA spat impatiently, his volume raised.

7.7 wanted to go after him, but stopped, deciding against it. Something was happening to KILLUA, inside the other's processing system, that made him chaotic and unpredictable. 7.7 had already been chastised and slapped away from whatever KILLUA was dissecting many times that day. He didn't want to be any more trouble.

In his pouty gait, KILLUA inevitably came across the aquarium he'd seen the day before. Looking past the outer wall of brown brick and large broken windows, he saw a large fish tank filled with murky green water.

Scenes of water, blinding sunshine, and childish laughter electrocuted his circuits. He had to get to the bottom of this. KILLUA stepped onto the path leading up toward the building.

Inside the lobby threshold, the place was old and dusty. There were no fish anymore, their bodies either decomposed or eaten by birds long ago. KILLUA felt a sense of familiarity with the place, as he did with 7.7. How was that possible, though? He was just a robot, found in a tube in a tunnel underground. Probably a part of some grand production line. There were likely more robots in that tunnel that KILLUA and 7.7 failed to investigate. Robots didn't possess memories, only those their creators implanted inside their hard drive. How did KILLUA even get this information about the past? How did he even know robots didn't possess memories? Did his creator really put it there…?

_It all has to be connected somehow…_

KILLUA came to a courtyard area outside, where the former aquarium tanks opened to the sky. An old bench rested across from one of them, on the edge of the property. The longer he stared at it, the more his body began to shake. His circuits fired and then were blocked by something, and KILLUA was reduced to his knees as he endeavored to process the information, overloaded.

He got flashes of 7.7's tan, human face, cheery and bright in the warm summer sun as KILLUA chased after him around the open tanks in this very aquarium. 7.7's amber eyes spilling with tears that rolled down his human skin. An overcast day, the heaviness in the heart of his metal chest, and he caught one last look at his friend on the other side of a closing doorway as he was pulled away. His own voice screaming, as his organic, pale, human hand reached out to him. _"__Gon! Gon!"_

_That was his name!_ KILLUA realized. He stood, trying to control the memories flowing through him now, enough to get him back to his friend, when a rustle halted KILLUA in his tracks. Radioactive blue eyes riveting on the two figures emerging from the bushes, suddenly, his vision went black.

* * *

**To my delight, **_**OBLIVIØN**_** (2019) by Crywolf was released earlier this year! It's quite elevating, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested. I wasn't sure I'd be able to write this chapter before school starts again, but I did! It's a pretty short one, but now we get to see where the network of connections begins… Next chapter will be the last, and the plot will only continue to thicken from here.**

**I hope you're enjoying my attempt at writing this post-apocalyptic AU. Please leave your thoughts! I will greatly appreciate any feedback~**


	3. Devastation

**= Опустошение =**

* * *

7.7's metal feet clanged against the ground. He searched for KILLUA in the direction he saw him stomp off, and eventually came upon the aquarium they passed by earlier that day. 7.7 felt his internal mechanism stutter in worry, an emotion he never felt before the robot showed up. He hadn't felt many emotions before KILLUA showed up at all.

7.7 recalled the hesitation KILLUA had emitted when they were here before, though he hadn't known how to ask. He stared at the broken windows of the place once full of marine wonders. Halted on the pathway leading to the main building, he saw two figures emerge from the metal frame of the shattered front doors. They were taller than him and KILLUA, and they didn't move with the same jerky steps or careful preciseness. Something about how they moved was too… random. 7.7 felt his circuits go ice cold when he saw one of them was carrying a shut-down KILLUA in their arms.

It wasn't long before the two figures spotted 7.7 and started ambling toward him. Feeling trepidation, 7.7 wanted to run away, but he couldn't just leave KILLUA without knowing of their intentions. As they got closer, he registered the pity and surprise in their expressions. One of the two was blond and only a little over a head taller than him and KILLUA. The other stood above all three, with tan skin close to 7.7's in color. Both figures were dressed in dark, raggedy ponchos, their faces smudged with dirt. They had come a long way, and they were… human.

"There's another one of you…?" the blond one gasped in alarm. They stood closer to the taller man out of apprehension, and a little behind him.

"Who are you?" 7.7 asked cautiously, his voice a robotic croak. Based on the state of the world around them, he wasn't going to trust a human so quickly either.

The taller man laid KILLUA on the path in front of 7.7. "We found him collapsed in the aquarium over there," he said. "We don't mean either of you any harm. Do you know what happened to this place?"

Eyeing them curiously, 7.7 crouched down to KILLUA. The rod that had replaced 7.7's missing right arm swayed unsteadily in the afternoon breeze as he did. "KILLUA and I were searching for a clue."

"Killua, huh?" There was a quirk in the man's brow at the name, one which 7.7 didn't quite understand. Before he could ask, the man gestured to himself and the blond person beside him. "The name's Leorio. This is Kurapika. We've been stuck here for a few months, and went looking for clues too after waking up in the capital."

"A few months?" 7.7 asked, shocked.

"Yeah, we woke up from cryonic sleep chamber a few cities over to find the world in this decayed state. Do you know anything about it?"

Glancing down at KILLUA's placid plasticine features, 7.7 wondered what could have happened. Kurapika's dissecting gaze at the action did not go unnoticed. 7.7 wished KILLUA would awake, not sure what to make of this situation on his own. He was smarter and more competent than him, anyway.

The human Kurapika approached 7.7 carefully, seeing 7.7's unmoved expression as he looked down at KILLUA's face. "Do you… know him?"

7.7 answered without feeling, though he couldn't explain the pensivity that had overcome his circuits. "KILLUA just woke up yesterday. I found him in a hidden cavern at the end of a tunnel near my home. He was acting kind of weird, but I had been here alone until then, so I didn't pay it any mind."

"How long were you alone?"

"Something like eighty-seven years."

Kurapika and Leorio exchange a fightful look.

Gears in his neck whirred as 7.7 gazed up at the humans in question. There was a shift in the mood, one the robot couldn't grasp, but could certainly perceive. He could certainly perceive Leorio and Kurapika's hesitation to elaborate on the subject as well.

A hand went to the back of the taller man's head. "Well…"

The eyelid-like shutters over 7.7's light sensors "blinked" multiple times as focused and refocused, looking back-and-forth between the two humans.

"W-we –"

Kurapika cut him off before he could come up with a believable lie. "We knew you before, when you were human."

7.7 cocked his heavy metal head. "When I was human?"

Leorio crossed between Kurapika and 7.7, taking Kurapika defensively by the shoulders. "Kurapika, don't! We don't know what he's capable of –"

Kurapika said, "If the Zoldyck Corporation did what they set out to do, then a sliver of our friend should still be in there. I know it."

At the mention of the Zoldyck Corporation, KILLUA shuddered in regained consciousness. Disregarding Leorio and Kurapika arguing beside them, he sat up slowly until he saw 7.7 crouched beside him and gripped him by the shoulders. "Gon! I know who we are! Do you remember me?!"

"Eh, uh –" Overwhelmed by the information overload, 7.7 turned his stonily-featured, plasticine face away from KILLUA and the others. "I…"

Clearly disappointed, KILLUA let go of him and turned to Kurapika and Leorio. "We have to find out what they did to this place," he said, his radioactive blue eyes piercing blue in the fading orange light of early evening.

"Killua, what are you talking about?" Leorio asked. "What happened to you and Gon?"

The robot KILLUA brought his sharp, pale hands to his chest. Grief crossed over his robotic features, his likeness is far closer to a normal human child than 7.7's. "I've been getting flashbacks. Flashbacks about when Gon and I knew each other – before."

Failing his arms angrily, Leorio stepped forward. "Before when?! Don't leave us out of the dark!"

KILLUA turned momentarily toward him and Kurapika, but he didn't linger for long, as he heard 7.7's voice behind him.

"I… I don't remember anything," 7.7 murmured. The three of them, expectant, fell short in their thoughts. The hollow sound of wind blowing through the abandoned, empty aquarium resonated behind them, only reflecting the amount of time and circumstances that had separated all of them. Gon had been like the glue that held all of them together at the beginning.

Finally, breaking the hollow silence, Kurapika approached the two robots. "Killua. You said you remembered Gon from your past. What did you mean by that?"

KILLUA nodded. "Yeah. And I know who caused this mess, and where to find them, the Zoldyck Corporation – my family. They have to pay for what they've done."

"I couldn't have said it better myself," Leorio agreed, driving a fist into his other in pumped aggression, the poncho over his shoulders fluttering with the motion.

Kurapika turned back to KILLUA. "We know where to start. The capital, the city we woke up in – that's where the Zoldyck Corporation was located."

Killua nodded at them. "Then let's go. We have to figure out what happened, or else there may be no way to reverse this."

They traveled for days, back to the place where Kurapika and Leorio said they were frozen in cryonic sleep. 7.7, confused by the turn of events, decided to go with them nonetheless, feeling he had no other purpose other than to help them. For some reason, he didn't want to leave KILLUA's side. He couldn't retain battery charge for the entire trip, so he had the others carry his mechanical body after getting back to full power at the charging station in the Garden. He remained in a powered-down sleep for the majority of the journey, limp in Leorio's arms.

They traversed vast plains of yellow grass and forests of misty evergreen. Snow-capped mountains watched over them in the near distance. The two humans were curios to KILLUA. How fragile they were, needing to take refuge from the slightest change in temperature or shift in lighting. How often they needed to search for food and water. On the final day of the journey, after KILLUA helped them detect water for the tenth time, he knew the blond one had caught on to his aloof attitude with them and Leorio. Tapping KILLUA on the shoulder as the three of them trod closer to the city that was once their home, Kurapika inquired, "Killua, do you remember us?"

KILLUA stared deeply at the humans in front of him: the blond with kind brown eyes, something sharp about them despite their round edges, the tall man with thick dark hair that stood up like Gon's, and expressions that changed fluidly between calm and aggravation. The other robot remained slung over his shoulder. KILLUA took in the rhythm of their walking cycles, the bases of their hopeful expressions. It was… familiar, but he couldn't explain why. "I remember _something_," KILLUA said, "but I don't remember why." The metal boy's brow furrowed, wishing a flashback would show him the way – he hadn't had one since the three of them started on this journey. Nothing came to him.

Kurapika inhaled, nodding levelly. "That's good enough, I suppose." The blond patted KILLUA on the shoulder, and they continued on, leaving KILLUA feeling unreasonably… warm.

A few hours later, they were at the edge of the capital city, a place thousands of square miles in size. Leorio powered on 7.7 and set him on his feet as they approached to the square, where the large, black building of the Zoldyck Corporation reigned supreme over the others. Walking down the main street toward the city center in the light of day, high risers oversaw them on either side. Smashed pixels from humungous screens plastered all over their outside walls sprinkling the ground beneath their feet. Less plants overgrew this area, since the densely packed concrete between the streets would be nigh impossible to accommodate more than a vine or two with the little amount of light that reached between the buildings.

The four reached the center, 7.7 awake now. Thousands of loose newspapers swirled in the air around them, like large, grey butterflies swarming them from the sheer size and number. Snatching one from the air, KILLUA processed the human characters on the front page. The headline read: "ZOLDYCK CORPORATION TO RELEASE NEW PRODUCTION LINE."

KILLUA skimmed the body of the report. The faded text revealed that this new production line would showcase advanced A.I. unlike that which had ever been seen before, though it failed to detail how or why. From the words on the page, KILLUA's visual processor clouded as he received another flashback.

"_Please! Please!" _ he screamed. His voice was hoarse as rough hands held him down. Family members – his mother and eldest brother – were on either side of him as while his father approach him, thrashing against the table. There was an apparatus was in the man's hand, and a long, sharp needle moved toward his head from up above.

"_Killua, you will be our greatest creation, the most advanced A.I. to ever live. You will be immortal." _Convulsing and screaming in their hold, the needle pierced his skull, and he felt his life energy being sucked out of him like a vacuum cleaner, his soul leaving his body. Everything went dark, until he was trapped in a black box of cybernetic design, his voice echoing in the vastness of time and space.

In the present, KILLUA opened his robotic blue eyes. "This is it. I'm sure of it."

The building before them was grand. Rusted chrome covered every surfaces, hardly a broken window in the headquarters compared to the rest. Without pause, the four entered through the front doors, and a flash of its former glory ran through KILLUA's mind. A man with unimpressed, onyx eyes and silver-rimmed glasses used to greet him in the lobby, his subtle smile glistening surreptitiously at him from behind the front desk. Or all the times he had snuck out to play with Gon after that first time they met at the aquarium, with that man covering their backs…

The silence penetrated their skulls. As if they had walked into another dimension entirely, given how closed-off the building was from the rest of the world, they headed toward the elevator in a trance from the surreality of the building's inside pristine condition. One-hundred floor buttons rested on the inside of the crooked doors. Not expecting the thing to work after all these years, KILLUA, Kurapika, and Leorio jumped when the doors closed as 7.7 pushed a button.

"Floor ninety-nine." KILLUA pointed at it. "That's where we'll find answers."

Leorio pressed the 99 button on the elevator, and to their surprise, the elevator lifted off without so much as a hitch. The walls were made of glass as they got higher up, allowing them to see the expanse of the fallen city on their ascent. All view of the outside cut off when they approached the 99th floor though. The elevator stopped, and doors opened to reveal walls lined with plants glowing blue at the roots. A massive sky light allowed the sun to shower them with photons for photosynthesis. Their cleanliness and repose signified they had remained curated in the years after humanity's downfall.

Pattering languidly down the center aisle, the four glanced around the plant-filled room and the one beyond, where tanks of radioactive, blue liquid squatted in a large room with large windows on both sides. It is too clean and well-kempt compared to all they had seen the past few months, days, or eighty-seven years.

"What could have happened here…?" Kurapika voiced aloud. Standing from their examination of the tanks of radioactive blue beyond the plant room, Kurapika took notice of the cameras posted at the corners of both areas along with KILLUA, and wondered who could be watching.

Lingering behind the others in the plant room, 7.7 ran his working left fingers across the leaves and tubes feeding their soil. It reminded him of the Garden, the energy he felt emanating from his charging station. It was the same as these plants. He sensed there were more tubes beneath the soil gleaning energy as well. It was strange to see all of them flourishing here indoors.

In his mind's eye, 7.7 caught a glimpse of a man among such plants, a man who looked much like himself. Who could he be…?

While Leorio and Kurapika surveyed the area for the source of the camera footage, KILLUA's robotic blue eyes scanned through the walls. He found the connection fed live information to an entity unknown to him. They were definitely being watched, by someone or something that was still present. He turned back to warn the others. "Hey, it might not be safe. We should get out of here."

Kurapika and Leorio nodded at him, but 7.7 didn't hear KILLUA's warning. All of a sudden, explosions erupted all around him as he stared at his human body. He was in a warzone, and saw himself stretched on a table in front of him. He couldn't move as the man he had seen before spoke, out of breath and panicky. Dressed in a white coat, large amber eyes, wild dark hair, and a stubbly aftershave, the man moved quickly in a familiar space. It was enclosed, with scientific equipment on the sterile white walls.

"_I guess it'll just be you who gets to safety after the fall of humanity, Gon. Sorry I couldn't come with you."_

Secured in an alcove in the wall, the man worked feverishly as the ground shook and the lights in the facility flickered. Once an explosion sounded rather close to the facility, he looked back at Gon. _"There isn't enough time."_

Gon could only watch as men in dark suits barged through the facility door, descending stairs before tearing Ging away from him, who screamed obscenities at them. One of the men marched up to where Gon watched them from and stood there, inches from his face, studying him. Gon felt himself crying with all his might from within, unable to break through the metal that imprisoned him as the men dragged Ging away when, at that moment, a whirlwind kicked up, so powerful that it tore the stone walls of the facility from their very foundation, driving the remaining men out and ripping the trees in the forest around them. The guard closest to 7.7 grabbed onto his right arm for anchorage, a limb made of metal and plasticine, which glimmered on the shoulder with his copper-plated name: **G-O-N**. It tore off from the intensity of the whirlwind, and the guard disappeared into the dust and debris all around him. The last image that 7.7 saw was a massive cyclone above the trees, many miles away, red and reverberating with the screams of a million souls.

Unable to grasp the tile ground beneath him, GON stumbled back. "Ging… No… This life force… it's –?!"

"Gon!" KILLUA ran to his side, resting a knee against the ground as he placed a hand on the other's motley shoulder.

Kurapika felt the hairs on the back of their neck raise, hearing Gon. Leorio stepped away from the tanks of blue liquid with an expression of horror.

Before GON could elaborate, a voice played over the loudspeaker. Booming laughter erupted in their ears. "Finally, you have returned. I almost thought you'd forgotten after such a long time. I've been waiting for you."

KILLUA recognized the voice as his father's and stood up defiantly to meet the entity surrounding them now. "Father! You did this!"

The computerized voice sounded amused as he addressed the four of them, who had fallen right into his nest. "Now, I am the most powerful supercomputer there ever was and ever will be. By the grace of my power, I allow the entire human race to live inside me. You can't escape."

"But we survived!" Kurapika shouted. "How do you explain that?!"

"That was just a fluke," the supercomputer, "SILVA" crooned. "As was the failure I named 5.5. KILLUA, you were supposed to protect this place, but instead you fell into a deep sleep, waiting for someone who would never come."

"Wh-what…?" KILLUA could hardly register the words.

Before any of them had time or the wherewithal to react, SILVA declared, "I have transcended beyond you. You may have survived for all these years unnoticed for reasons unknown to me, but now, you have stumbled into my trap. Good-bye, puny humans."

"No!"

The floor beneath them cracked and started to give way. All four of them fell into the pit below, down stories and stories of floors without end. With their organic bodies, GON took one last look at the terrified faces of Kurapika and Leorio, his friends, falling to their deaths, as if in slow-motion. Whipping his head over to KILLUA, him and KILLUA had the same idea at the same time. Their internal mechanisms clicked at the same processing speed before they become too far away from each other and calculated a pathway back up to the 99th floor. Using his nimble feet to climb falling pieces of tile and stone, once KILLUA reached GON, the other took his legs, spun and propelled him up the remaining length to get to the 99th floor. Sharpening his fingers, KILLUA drove his hand through the glass, and clawed his way into one of the radioactive blue tanks. It ignited the liquid from within. Above GON, Kurapika, and Leorio, the plant room flowered into yellow and red flames, and KILLUA let go to join them. The metallic howling of a computer could be heard echoing down the shaft where they fell, and GON closed his eyes. The central mainframe of the computer was destroyed, and they were finally free.

* * *

**= Epilogue =**

* * *

"_Do you believe in reincarnation?" Gon asked Killua one day. His tan skin was touched by the sunny summer heat in the green field that surrounded them._

_At the time, Killua shrugged. "I dunno. It seems kinda nonsensical to me."_

_Gon blinked at him. Legs folded on the picnic blanket beside his friend, he couldn't comprehend Killua's answer. "What makes you say that?"_

"_I don't know. I mean, how can you know that it's your consciousness that's transferred from one lifetime to the next? Scientifically, it doesn't check out."_

_Coming up behind them, Kurapika carried a basket of food in one hand. "Who cares about science? I doubt that's how it would work anyway." Standing behind Kurapika, Leorio held up a large watermelon with a triumphant smile._

_Gon turned toward them. "Do you believe in reincarnation?"_

"_Of course," Kurapika remarked, sitting beside Killua and Gon. "How else would we know where we belong in this world?"_

"_Whaat?" Leorio looked at them in surprise as he unpacked the food. "How can you say that? I'm with you on this one, Killua. It seems like a bunch of hopeful crock if you ask me."_

_Gon sounded disappointed as he looked at his friend and pouted. "Ehhhh? You don't think we could meet again in another life after this one?"_

_Spotting the chocolate cake among their grand setup of food, Killua's eyes sparkled as he tried not to drool. "Whatever, Gon – let's eat!"_

_Sharing food in the summer sun, the four of them laughed and joked and made fun of each other in the field, far from the worries looming over them at the time. Surrounded by friends who cared about him, despite all that had tried to come between them the last few months, Gon felt at peace. When he looked toward the capital in the distance of the field, he couldn't explain it… Something about it dithered, unable to hold onto the humanity that had birthed it in the fading mid-summer heat._

* * *

**I finally did it! I finally finished this story! Shout out to my reviewers and story followers who have stuck until the end of this little detour. It took a lot longer than I imagined. I hope the story was enjoyable and refreshing overall.**

**With the end of this fic, I will likely be pursuing stuff mostly from other fandoms, once my long-term idea **_**Things I Don't Understand **_**is finished before the end of this year as well. But who knows? If Sunrise ever makes a season 7 of **_**Hunter x Hunter **_**or if Togashi ever updates, rest assured I will be back in the fandom yet again.**

**For the third and final time, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and will leave your thoughts. This story was very much away from the norm of the stuff that I normally pursue, so I'd appreciate it!**


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